‘Manaus strain’ individual found

THE mystery person infected with the Manaus variant of coronavirus has been found, according to reports. Officials have been hunting for the unknown individual after cases of the variant of concern were detected in the UK.

Six cases of the P1 variant, first identified in the Brazilian city of Manaus, have been found - three in Scotland and three in England.

A public appeal was made for one of those people in England to come forward after they took a test in February but left no contact details. Earlier this week, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the hunt for the infected person had been narrowed down to 379 households in the southeast of England.

According to the BBC, public health officials have now found the unnamed person and traced all of their contacts.

The P1 variant, which was also detected in travellers from Brazil to Japan, was associated with a surge of cases in Manaus late last year. It is among a total of four variants of concern being tracked by scientists in the UK.

A study this week suggested that between 25% and 61% of people in Manaus who had previously had Covid were susceptible to reinfection with the concerning P1 variant.

YOUTUBE has removed five channels run by Myanmar’s military for violating guidelines, it announced, as demonstrators defied growing violence by security forces and staged more anti-coup protests ahead of a special UN Security Council meeting on the country’s crisis.

YouTube earlier pulled dozens of channels as part of a probe into content uploaded in a co-ordinated influence campaign. It followed Facebook’s earlier announcement that it had removed all Myanmar military-linked pages from its site.